Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Here is our ninth video in our Merge Video Retrospective series. This one comes from The Ladybug Transistor's 2007 album Can't Wait Another Day. It is for the melancholy tune "Always on the Telephone" which culminates with the chasing of a departing blimp. It's quite a cool visual that you can see in the still on the right.

Everyone's favorite local indie-pop orchestra Lost in the Trees is hitting the road in July on a two week tour of the eastern half of the US. The tour will kick off and end with shows in the Triangle. The tour opener will be on Saturday, July 4 at the Festival for Eno in Durham. A single day ticket is $13 and available via etix.com. The tour will wrap up with a big show at the Cat's Cradle on July 19 with The Kingsbury Manx and Midtown Dickens. Tickets for that show are $8 via etix.com.

Check out all the dates in between the two hometown shows below.

After the tour, Lost in the Trees have two more shows scheduled in the Triangle. The first is a free show with The Love Language at Wallace Plaza in Chapel Hill on August 20 that is part of the Locally Grown series. Check out out more information on the series here.

The other show is at Frank Thompson Hall on NC State's campus. The details of this show are unclear right now.

Andrew Bird is hitting the the road again this fall and will return to the Triangle for not one, but two shows. He is teaming up with another phenomenal talent, St. Vincent for the tour, which will stop in Carrboro at the Cat's Cradle on October 7 and 8. Tickets for the shows will be $25 each and will go on sale on Friday, July 10 via etix.com.

Bird's latest album, Noble Beast was released in January, while St. Vincent just released her latest album Actor in May. Check out mp3s from both albums below along with the full tour schedule.

Monday, June 29, 2009

We're just keeping rolling with our Merge Video Retrospective series here. Tonight's video comes from Tenement Halls' (led by Rock*A*Teens singer/songwriter Chris Lopez) 2005 album Knitting Needles & Bicycle Bells. It is a simple performance video for the groovy little song "Plenty is Never Enough." You can also download the song below.

Seattle based Sup Pop band Fruit Bats is gearing up to launch a new tour and album in August. The band will release their fourth album, The Ruminant Band, on August 4 via Sub Pop of course. Download the song "My Unsusual Friend" from the album below.

Two weeks later, on August 18, the band will launch a North American tour. The tour will stop in Chapel Hill at Local 506 on September 10. Brooklyn band Pronto, fronted by Wilco keyboarist Mikael Jorgensen, will open the show. Check out a track from their album, All is Golden, below. Tickets for the show will be $10 and will be on sale soon via etix.com.

Merge's latest new band, Telekinesis is building quite a buzz lately and now the band can add a session on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic to the resume. You can watch the performance below which features a bunch of songs from the band's self-titled, debut about (out now on Merge). If nothing else, it's worth watching just to see frontman Michael Benjamin Lerner play drums and sing at the same time. He pulls it off really well.

Telekinesis will be playing at the XX Merge Festival in July at the Cat's Cradle.

KCRW have had a bunch of other great bands in the studio lately including Okkervil River, Pete Yorn and Camera Obscura among many others. Check out those sessions here.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Here's the next video of our Merge Video Retrospective series. This is for "The Minister of Longitude" from The Music Tapes' 2008 album Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes. The video follows the journey of giant metronome, interspersed with some random performance shots among other random things.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Here's the sixth video of our Merge Video Retrospective series. For this one, we go back to Merge founder Mac McCaughan, opting for Portastatic this time. This is the video for "San Andreas" from the 1995 album Slow Note From a Sinking Ship. It features all of the Mac you could ever want, sometimes even five of him at once. It's a pretty cheesy video, but cool none-the-less. Enjoy.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Here's the next video in our Merge Video Retrospective series. This is our most recent video so far, just being released last year. It is from American Music Club's latest album The Golden Age. The video is for the song "All the Lost Souls Welcome You to San Francisco" (you can download an mp3 below) and features the the group performing in the drink glasses of actress Grace Zabriskie (from Big Love, Twin Peaks). Enjoy and as always, stay tuned for more Merge videos.

In a surprising announcement today, Merge Records says that they will release a brand new Spoon single this Tuesday, June 30.

The single, titled "Got Nuffin" will be available on CD and as a digital download. A 12" vinyl version will be released in late July. The release will feature two b-sides, "Tweakers" and "Stroke Their Brains."

Spoon is set to play the XX Merge Festival in July at the Cat's Cradle. Other than that, the band only have a few dates schedule this year. Check them out below.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Here's the fourth video from our Merge Video Retrospective series. This one is from Lambchop's (aka Kurt Wagner) 2002 album Is a Woman. It is for the title track "Is a Woman." The video is a beautiful animated video, following a leaf down a stream which then joins other leaves to find a home in a baron tree. It sounds a bit silly, but it's a beautiful video. Enjoy.

Sad, sad news has just been released. The King of Pop, Michael Jackson died at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles not long ago. He was taken to the hospital after an apparent cardiac arrest at his home.

What can you say about the huge list of hit albums and songs that he produced during his career? No matter what you think of what became of his personal life and career in recent years, his legacy will be the incredible music he left us. It is truly a sad, sad day.

I thought I'd share the video for "Black or White" with you. Of the many videos that are ingrained in my memory, this is one that stands out from elementary school.

Chatham County Line will be spending a large part of their summer touring Europe and playing shows with Jonas Fjeld, but they haven't forgotten where they're from. The band have announced a number of new shows in North Carolina.

Besides their shows in Charlotte and Wilmington on June 26 and 27, the band will play Raleigh on July 25 at a show for the Beehive Collective. Details of this show are not available yet, but we'll get back to you when they are.

Alina Simone rolled into the Triangle today straight off a plane from New York to play an early evening set at Duke Gardens. Supported by a guitarist and a drummer, Simone essentially played two sets without a break in-between.

The first set was devoted to songs from her 2008 album Everyone is Crying Out To Me, Beware. Before starting the set, Simone warned the crowd that all the lyrics during the first half of the show would be in Russian. The album is devoted to the music of Russian songwriter and poet Yanka Dyagileva.

Though the crowd presumably could not understand the lyrics, Simone warned the crowd that the lyrics of "My Sadness is Luminous" were not safe for any Russian speaking kids in the crowd (check out the translation of the lyrics here).

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

We're jumping ahead about nine years for today's Merge Retrospective video. This one is for one of Spoon's most popular songs, "The Way We Get By," from their 2002 album Kill the Moonlight. It's a simple, yet aesthetically pleasing video for the groovy little song.

So far, all of the bands we've featured will be playing the XX Merge Festival in July. Check out the rest of the series here and stay tuned for more videos.

The big supergroup that goes by the moniker the Works Progress Administration has announced some scattered tour dates throughout the rest of the year. What's so special about this band you ask? It features Sara and Sean Watkins (of Nickel Creek), Glen Phillips, Luke Bulla, Benmont Tench (of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), and Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher (of Elvis Costello and the Imposters). That's one hell of a band.

Among the dates on the tour is a surprising booking at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh on September 17. More surprising is the cost. You can see all of these great players perform together for just $12. Tickets go on sale on Friday, July 10 at 10am via etix.com.

The group has recorded an album that should be out sometime this year, though no release date has been announced yet. You can download a song from the album titled on the group's website if you fork over you email address. You can also watch a little mini-documentary about the band below.

There is some good news and bad news about The Avett Brothers new album. Here's the bad news first. The release date of their new album I and Love and You has been pushed back from August and is now set to come out on September 29.

Here's the good news though. Spinner.com has a title track for the album available to download. Click the link below to download the somber and beautiful piano ballad. It's a really nice track.

Check out Avett Brothers upcoming tour dates below as well. There's currently no date in the Triangle, but I would expect one to pop up before the end of the year considering this is one of their biggest fanbases.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Here's our second video of what we've dubbed the "Merge Video Retrospective" series. This one is from Polvo. It's the video for "Tilebreaker" from their 1993 album Today's Active Lifestyles. The video really epitomizes lo-fi, indie videos of the 90's. It was shot in black and white and all of the non-performance shots don't seem to make any sense. Check it out below and stay tuned or even more Merge videos to come.

The four original members of Sunny Day Real Estate, responsible for the band's first two albums for Sub Pop, are reuniting for a tour this fall. Unfortunately, the tour is not coming to the Triangle, so devoted fans will have to head to Washington DC or Atlanta to see the reunited band.

The tour coincides with Sub Pop re-releasing the band's first two albums Diary and LP2 (The Pink Album). The albums have been remastered and will include rare bonus tracks and new liner notes. They will be released on September 15, two days before the start of the tour in Vancouver. Check out the dates below.

Monday, June 22, 2009

With the big XX Merge Festival now officially one month away, we thought we'd celebrate by digging up some music videos, old and new, from Merge's history. We'll shoot to bring you a video each day between now and the start of the XX Merge on July 22.

I thought there's no better place to start that with a classic Superchunk video. So enjoy the youthful antics of "Throwing Things" from the album No Pocky For Kitty (released by Matador in 1991, but re-released by Merge in 1999).

Psychedelic UK band The Clientele are gearing up to release their new album Bonfires on the Heath via Merge Records. The album, the follow-up to 2007's God Save the Clientele, will be released on October 6. Check out the track list for the album below.

The Clientele will be coming to the Triangle to play the XX Merge Festival at the Cat's Cradle sometime between July 22-25. We're only a month away from the festival now. It's going to be fun.

Bonfires on the Heath track list:1. I Wonder Who We Are2. Bonfires on the Heath3. Harvest Time4. Never Anyone but You5. Jennifer & Julia6. Sketch7. Tonight8. Share the Night9. I Know I'll See Your Face10. Never Saw Them Before11. Graven Wood12. Walking in the Park

Heart is on tour this summer and wil be criss-crossing the country through the fall playing cities big and small. The group has just added Cary to their itinerary. The band will play the Koka Booth Amphitheatre on September 4. It's good that the show is on the far end of the sweltering North Carolina heat bell curve. Tickets for the show go on sale on Friday, June 26 at 10 am here. There is a fan club pre-sale that starts on Thursday, June 25 at 10am here.

Interestingly enough, we just saw The Decemberists slay at Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh when they played Heart's song "Crazy On You." Check out Heart performing the song on the television show "The Midnight Special" back in 1976 below along with the tour dates.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

While on tour in April, Roman Candle recorded some new songs from Oh Tall Tree in the Ear, which is out now, for Daytrotter. The session has now been posted online for you to download and/or stream. The set includes "They Say," "Eden Was a Garden," "Why Modern Radio is A-OK" and "Starting From Scratch."

The session has an old school sound too it. Skip's vocals have a lot of reverb and distort when he sings louder passages. It really works with their sound. Check out the session here.

Roman Candle only have a few dates scheduled right now. Check those out below.

Friday, June 19, 2009

After a supporting Coldplay on a portion of their current tour, Pete Yorn is hitting the road on his own to support his new album Back & Fourth. The tour will bring Yorn back to the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh on July 18. Tickets for the show are on sale now via etix.com for $25. Zee Avi will open the show.

San Diego band Pinback are gearing up to hit the road this fall on a tour that will bring the band back to the Cat's Cradle on October 27. Tickets for the show went on sale today for $14 via etix.com.

Pinback have been working on a new album, the follow-up to their 2007 album Autumn of the Seraphs. The new album is expected to be released next year. They just might play some new songs on their upcoming tour. You can check out those dates below.

We've told you that Polvo has a new album due out on September 8 via Merge Records titled In Prism, but now we have a song for you to check out. Download the third track from the album, the explosive "Beggar's Bow," below.

The band have a few tour dates in their future, including an appearance at the XX Merge Festival in July. Check out the upcoming dates below.

The rain was merciful Wednesday night and steered clear of the Duke Gardens where Megafaun played a great show.

The band got things going with the somber tune "Drains" before launching into the foot-stompin' "Beloved Binge." The trio continued through the rest of their set that included a bunch of songs from their upcoming release Gather, Form & Fly. Some standout new tunes from the set were "Guns," "Kaufman's Ballad," "The Fade" (which you can download below) and "The Longest Day." The latter featured fantastic backing vocals by Christy Smith of The Tender Fruit.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Will Hoge is returning to the road in the coming months with his first lengthy tour schedule since is life-threatening scooter accident in Nashville last year. The tour will bring him to the Cat's Cradle on October 3. There's no word on tickets yet, but we'll let you know when there is. Tickets are on sale now for $10 via etix.com. The Alternate Routes are set to open the show.

Hoge had been working on a new album, the follow-up to 2007's Draw the Curtains, at the time of his accident and after rehabilitation and recovery, has just wrapped up the recording and mixing of the new album. The album is tentatively due out in September, but there's not an official release date yet. If things go as planned, he will have a new album in tow when he plays the Cradle.

Also, if you have the time, you can watch a lengthy interview about the accident, learning to sing and play again and the new album below. It's about 20 minutes long.

Ra Ra Riot is hitting the road again this fall after spending the spring and summer playing shows with Death Cab For Cutie. The fall tour will bring Ra Ra Riot back to the Cradle on September 30. Maps & Atlases and Princeton will open the show and most of the tour. Tickets go on sale on Friday, June 19 for $12 via etix.com.

Ra Ra Riot's latest album is 2008's The Rhumb Line. Download "Dying is Fine" from the album below.